


That for which there is no word

by avanti_90



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Drabble Sequence, Gen, Languages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:29:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avanti_90/pseuds/avanti_90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five languages Rúmil of Tirion learned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That for which there is no word

_1._ _Quenya_

I place my ink-stained fingers gently over the child’s hand, guiding his tapered brush across the parchment. I do this only out of long habit, for his brush-strokes are perfect – until he jerks his hand away and there is a sharp line instead of a graceful curve.

I snatch my hand away and exclaim in anger, but he continues heedless, shaping in precise lines seven distinct forms of a vowel; I stand silent, filled with amazement and swiftly blazing pride, and the sudden, absolute certainty that however many students I teach, there shall never again be one such as this.

 

 _2._ _Ent_

I have lulled myself to sleep with nightingale-chirps, driven myself to fury with the bone-shaking challenge of the lion-pride; but this, _this-_

Slow, sonorous, each syllable laden with millennia of experience, infinitely subtle distinctions of tone and emphasis -

_\- Taurelilometumbalemornatumbaletaurelomeanor -_

Our first conversation lasts fifty years of the sun, and when at last, one starlit night in the forest-grove, surrounded by the scent of pine-needles, snowflakes falling into my hair, I know the full meaning of what is said _–_ then, for the first time in two centuries of fire and blood, I do not regret crossing the Ice.

 

 _3_. _Sindarin_

I do not give in even when their armored fists bring me to my knees before the throne. Even then, ignoring the blood and torment around me, I sing my defiance to the Dark Lord’s face.

He laughs, and to my horror he repeats my own words back to me – _my_ words, but in his voice each phrase is twisted into its darkest imaginable meaning, until my song has become one so terrible, so disgusting that my throat is choked and I thrust my hands over my ears, but that alone cannot stop his voice, and I begin to scream.

 

_4\. Orc_

Each night in the blood-stained, tear-soaked pits of Angband, the Dark Lord walks in my dreams. Not nightmares; those would be merciful. He is not merciful. Night after night I dream of pearl-sand and soft beds and kind hands come to my rescue; day after day I awaken to greater torment.

One night I dream that the gates of Angband are falling with a thunder to shake the sun; that lights are descending into that darkness where no light can come.

I whimper in fear and cry out to my captors for mercy, knowing that it will not be granted.

 

_5\. Valarin_

When the Valar sing our new home into shape, I hear in their voices ringing through the Lonely Isle every song I have known, from nightingale-chirp to tree-rumble and war-drum.

And then in one instant the countless songs fade together, into one song, one voice – _one word._

The word grows all around me, within me, filling me with joy great enough to wipe away centuries of torment and silence, until at last it bursts out in my voice; infinitely beautiful, infinitely powerful, rising to join that first song that flows unbroken from the beginning to the end of all things.

 


End file.
